Music

Watching Roky Erickson play his first Dallas show in more than 20 years Saturday night was a mix of revelations and questions about what might have been.

NAN COULTER/Special Contributor

Roky Erickson threw himself into his show Saturday night at the Granada Theater.

The first impression is that it's a miracle he's performing at all.

After helping invent psychedelic rock in 1966 and '67 as singer of Austin's 13th Floor Elevators, Mr. Erickson dropped out of sight. Schizophrenia – combined with brain damage from hundreds of LSD trips – left him so delusional he ordered his lawyer to draft a document stating he was a space alien.

Since then, he's became one of rock's mythic lost souls – the Texas equivalent of Syd Barrett. But unlike Pink Floyd's singer, Mr. Erickson eventually rebounded.

His odyssey from the mental ward back to the stage is told in the new documentary You're Gonna Miss Me, which fans viewed Saturday night at the Granada Theater. When the film ended, out walked Mr. Erickson, his face beaming as he repeatedly yelled, "Thank you!" to the cheering crowd.

Backed by the Explosives, a punky Austin trio he first played with in the '70s, Mr. Erickson howled with almost as much gusto (if not clarity) as he had in the '60s. On electric guitar, he stuck mostly to rhythm, letting Cam King play the blistering solos. But when Mr. Erickson did dive into a solo, he attacked it like the second coming of Otis Rush.

It was a performance of disarming strength. Mr. Erickson's not the first mentally ill rocker to go on tour, but anyone who's seen Brian Wilson struggle through a show would be amazed at how effortless and vigorous Mr. Erickson seemed Saturday night. On the eve of his 60th birthday, he sounded like a teenage punk.

Forty years after it was recorded (and seven after it kicked off the film High Fidelty), "You're Gonna Miss Me" still felt revolutionary. The recorded version now seems kitschy, thanks to the chicken-squawk sound of the electric jug. Onstage, sans jug, it was 2 ½ minutes of pure garage-rock frenzy.

The chiming "Splash 1," another classic from '66, reminded you of Mr. Erickson's gift for haunting folk-rock melodies. And if you didn't know he wrote the power-pop gem "Starry Eyes," you'd assume it was a lost Big Star classic.

Mr. Erickson also played songs he cut sporadically in the '70s and '80s, a period when he shifted from psychedelic rock into generic heavy metal. Tunes like "Bloody Hammer" and "Red Temple Prayer (Two-Headed Dog)" recalled Alice Cooper, while the hyper-repetitive "Creature With the Atom Brain" bordered on Spinal Tap.

As his mental illness progressed, his albums and his career suffered, and Saturday's concert left you wondering how great his music might have become under better circumstances.

But for the most part, the show left you marveling at how strong Mr. Erickson sounds today – and how great it is to see him on a stage after so many years of languishing in obscurity.